


Claptrap's EPIC Adventure!

by Hardman5509



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/F, F/M, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-09-15 13:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9236327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hardman5509/pseuds/Hardman5509
Summary: A remake of my old series! With only fifteen days left to live and Sanctuary's citizens kidnapped, Claptrap goes on one last adventure to save the people who hate him.





	1. Like Any Other Day

Let me start out by saying: I’m sorry for not updating the original Claptrap’s Adventure. I got two things to say about it…I did get tired of writing the original story. I found myself not getting interested in the adventure anymore. I had written myself not into a corner but into a slump…but thankfully a great friend got me the Tales from the Borderlands Season Pass and I finished it…and that’s the second reason why I’m redoing the series.

A better understanding of the series…plus I have the exact details of what happened in Tales. 

Welcome to the second edition of Claptrap’s Adventure…Claptrap’s Epic Adventure!

\-----------

Normalcy by Pandora standard can be defined as: not having bullets fired at you and things not exploding. Sanctuary had been quiet for a long time. A good thing too, given the news of the impeding intergalactic war. To prepare for this, Lilith called in as many favors as possible to summon every Vault Hunter to Sanctuary to discuss a plan in case the worst happened.

Save for one hunter in particular. One that had been forced into retirement and now worked in a business he had absolutely no expertise in.

Claptrap had pretty much moved into Scooter’s old garage and business as his way to honor the memory of the fallen mechanic. Moxxi would have grabbed a Shock Norfleet launcher and unloaded it all into Claptrap if not for the pleading of Janey Springs. She and Athena just moved into the city following their wedding (And seeing how Elpis’ latest Merrif banned gay marriage after he tried and failed to get a date from the married Janey) and she needed someone with mechanical know-how-to than her own wife. 

Given that Moxxi’s first sight of seeing Athena after many years is her nearly getting crushed by a tire, it’s convinced her to leave things in Mrs. Springs’ hands.

Athena had started to tolerate to Claptrap a bit more, thanks to Janey. Of course, they did have to explain away when the three reunited to help that Hyperion twit and that con-lady why Janey insulted Claptrap.

“I had to bail Athena out of a firing squad a few days ago.” Janey explained. “I wasn’t in the mood to say ‘hi’.”

“That’s okay!” Claptrap chirped. “I would have been crossed if a good friend of mine lied to me one second and ended up on death row the next!”

Business had been slow…given that they were running a car mechanic business up in a flying city. It’s mostly repairing other electronics, running diagnostics on still-running Catch-A-Ride terminals…but for Claptrap, it’s paradise. He gets to do a job he actually liked doing and he wasn’t abused like he used to do when working on Helios. People still bitched and moaned about his continued existence, but he still worked like crazy to improve himself. Janey even paid him! Ten bucks a hour is enough for a robot of his caliber. 

Plus, he gets to work on his relationships with the other Vault Hunters. Some tolerated him, others threw death threats around like rain, and some would at least speak to him without him needing to talk to them first.

“Are you treating this like a dating sim, Clappy?” Janey asked as she peeked over Claptrap’s chassis. Claptrap quickly shut down his transmitter to prevent Janey from seeing his data. 

“No, am not.” Claptrap protested.

“Oh come on.” Janey let out a little giggle as she bent to stare Claptrap down. “Let me see your stats…”

“I rather not…” Claptrap started out before Janey gave him a quick tap on the top of his body. Claptrap’s transmitter turned back on and revealed his progress chart on the relationships for the people of Sanctuary. Janey and Gaige tied the lead with ‘Besties’. Lilith, Athena, Axton, Moxxi had the noble rank of ‘Tolerant’. Krieg had the unique rank of ‘Rusted Treasure Buddy.’ Maya, Zed, Zer0, and Tiny Tina had the rank of ‘Depending’. Patricia had her own unique rank of ‘Lab Partner’. Mordecai, Brick, Salvador, Aurelia, Sir Hammerlock and Marcus held the lowest rank of ‘Possible Murderers’. Crazy Earl had a blank entry next to his name.

“Aw!” Janey cooed. “Athena isn’t the bottom of the list…”

“Bottom of what list?” Athena called out from the office. Janey gave Claptrap another smack to his chassis and the image faded once again. 

“The list of hottest Atlas employees!” Janey quickly lied. 

“There’s a list for that?” Athena wondered out loud. “Okay…”

“I don’t feel too good about lying to Athena…” Janey sighed while throwing her shoulders up. “…but she wouldn’t be too happy about learning about that list.”

Claptrap lived an easy and peaceful life now. No worries about bandits using him as target practice, he just has to worry about the Vault Hunters doing the same. He had a few friends, is getting paid now, and he can live the safe life until he finally shut down.

Which came sooner than he thought.

“Oh, Clappy.” Janey snapped her fingers. “I need a Mainland Rear Right Tire Size 17 for a project. Could you be a dear…”

“Gladly!” Claptrap saluted before hopping back onto his wheel and driving off upstairs to grab the tire. While he still lacked a stair-climbing wheel, at least Janey outfitted him with a spring-loaded piston for his wheel that allowed him to hop up stairs. He got up to the second flight, managed to locate the proper tire and yanked it down to the floor to be ready to roll it down the stairs.

But something happened. He froze while holding the tire. Janey, waiting at the bottom of the stairs to catch the tire. “Claptrap?” Janey asked. 

Claptrap then went backwards, not in pace but practically in time itself as he perfectly retraced his pat. His attempt to get the tire back onto the rack in reserve just ended up with the tire rolling off into a corner and flipping onto its side. Claptrap then went backwards again and down the stairs…but he didn’t go far.

As the piston is meant to shoot up, he went up into the air and backwards, tumbling down the stairs. Claptrap crashed landed and hard. Janey ran over to Claptrap and even Athena joined with the two. “What happened?” Athena asked with a basic tone, neither interested or uninteresting. 

“I don’t know!” Janey gasped as she opened up a panel on the side of Claptrap, revealing his lazily-constructed circuitboard. A shower of sparks rained out as soon as it shot out. Janey flinched a second but got her fingers onto the board and fiddled around with it. “It looks like…” Janey suddenly went quiet. “…oh my god…”

“What, what?” Athena impatiently asked.

Janey got up and raced over to the computer implemented into the wall. She quickly typed away at it, running a search on Claptrap; his schematics, parts, general maintenance tips. “I think…I don’t know much about the Claptrap line of robots. I’ll need a expert on them.” She turned back towards Athena. “Could you be a dear and go get and Gaige? I’m going to need her help…” Janey trailed off as she scanned the pages of information, looking for the bet source of information. Athena took one look between her wife and the twitching Claptrap and ran off to go and find that mechromancer.

But within ten minutes of work, and Claptrap still looked terrible. He twitched more often and more violently. He became a prop for a rock band stage tour as he rained out sparks. Gaige and Janey did what they could with what they had, but it seemed no matter what they did, Claptrap simply wouldn’t improve. 

“Damn Hyperion tech…” Janey grunted as she tightened a loose screw, one in a million within Claptrap. “Have to make everything one gigantic mess so only their trained professionals can fix it…”

“Hyperion isn’t just evil, they’re petty.” Gaige completed the statement as she pulled out a fried wire to go and replace it with a fresh new one.

Athena stood watch at the door. She barely knew how to cook, let alone handle a sentient machine. All she could do is watch. And push out gawkers…and the occasional thief. At least some familiar faces appeared soon. There’s Maya and Lilith…and Brick, carrying a bucket of popcorn.

“And you just happened to have that?” Athena asked as Brick entered.

“Just in case I get to see something I hate suffer or die.” Brick admitted as he tossed in a single piece of popcorn. “Which is…often!” Athena sighed and let him in, knowing better than to stop the big guy. As the news of Claptrap’s ‘coma’ spread throughout Sanctuary, more people filled the garage looking for a good view of the near death of the Great Pest.

“You think there would be more of those repair kits.” Lilith shrugged out. “There were tons of those all over during our time hunting Vaults…”

“With the destruction of the Claptrap line, Handsome Jack didn’t miss anything.” Athena stated. “That includes not only everything single Claptrap unit, but also anyone with knowledge on how to make slash repair Claptraps, all materials that could be used to fixing a Claptrap and even all of the cheap souvenirs.”

“Including those nice mints.” Maya sighed in the corner. 

“This is a long-timing coming though.” Athena shook her head. “This unit has survived being a firing target, being reprogrammed multiple times, various crash-landings, multiple explosions, infected by a brain-eating worm, having people play around in his head…” Athena listed the items off her fingers. “I might be missing out some things, but that’s the general stuff.”

“So is Claptrap finally crapping out?” Marcus asked, joyfully. He had wheeled in a popcorn cart and selling buckets for fifty bucks each. 

Both of the mechanics working on him went silent for a second as they tried to do whatever to stop Claptrap from exploding. “I do know one person who could help us.” Gaige solemnly stated. “It’s a long shot, but this guy knows everything about everything…apparently.” Gaige went over to the computer in the wall and typed in a EchoNet number which the caller I.D. read as ‘Doc Alpha’.

“Isn’t the guy who turned a part of Earl’s scrapyard into a killing robot?” Janey asked.

“Yeah.” Gaige pointed at Janey. “If he could do that, he should be able to fix Claptrap!”

“Not the words I wanted to hear first.” Groaned a voice coming from the computer. The man on screen appeared to be a lazy college student; with his disheveled lab clothes, thick five-o’clock shadow, and glasses that settled unevenly on his nose. 

“Doc!” Gaige called out. “We don’t know what’s wrong with Claptrap, he’s unresponsive, his core processor is randomly slowing down and speeding up, everything appears to work for one second and then dies down the next…”

“Sounds like a Claptrap unit!” Alpha stated with a nasally voice. “Is what any hack at tech support would state. Alright…” Alpha cracked his knuckles…and then his hands became blurs as he hammered away the keyboard. “Alright.” Alpha coughed out as two colored buttons appeared on the screen: one for ‘Yes’ and one for ‘No.’ “Give me permission by clicking ‘Yes’…”

“Permission for what?” Janey suspiciously asked.

“You need to see this.” Alpha only admitted. Gaige took a second to consider before gently taping the ‘Yes’ button. A noise sounding like someone tapping on glass played. Alpha gave a quick thumbs up before going back to his computer and typing away. It became clear that he was writing code and had at least 160 wpm going on at all times. 

Brick was picking up an huge handful popcorn when the crane behind him suddenly came to life and pushed past him, causing him to drop his bucket. Marcus immediately rolled over to the crying Brick. Soon all of the cranes within the garage were somehow under the control of Alpha as they assembled various ‘arms’ with tools attached to them.

“H-how…” Lilith gasped. 

“Simple.” Alpha sighed. “And if anyone utters the word ‘English’, I’m shocking them. I will be explaining this as easy as possible to kill a stupid cliché..” Alpha had one of the cranes spark for a good measure of his threat. “By giving me permission, I’m able to access your network. I just created a program that allows me to broadcast a specific signal, which I direct to the cranes and allows me to access their systems to do whatever I need it to do. In this case, prepare me a bunch of tools I need to examine the Claptrap unit.”

“You can do that?” Lilith asked towards the two mechanics.

“In theory…” Gaige gulped, as she tried to consider the abstract science behind what just happened. Her eyes were glued to a crane helping another crane attach a new arm with a laser cutter attached to it. “…but the results going on is clear results, huh?”

“Real advanced stuff I got here.” Alpha admitted as he tapped on the computer screen. “Maliwan really pushes the envelope for new technology, and not just in form of weapons.” He bobbed his head up and down for a few silent seconds. “Mind you, I’m stuck inside this lab…”

“Yeah, yeah, hashtag nerd problems.” Gaige interrupted with a wave of her hand as she looked on to the scene of the cranes finishing up their transformations. Alpha sighed before taking direct control of the cranes, with one crane having a camera arm that moved about during the operation.

Truly, science fiction in action as Alpha operated each of the cranes like his own arms and hands, and the skill he wielded each of the tools could be compared to a surgeon (Or rather a mechanic) of at least twenty years of experience. Small amount of sparks came out as the laser cutter tore through some junk stuffed inside of Claptrap and as the wielding tool fused together systems that had been torn apart from the years of abuse.

But as a crane yanked various frayed wires out of Claptrap, Alpha’s expression changed from boredom to a interested look. He remained quiet as he finished up his operation, giving Claptrap more of a professional look…at least for the innerads. No more random wires and scrap metal hanging around.

“Annnddd…” Alpha drew out as he hovered his finger above a button. “Reboot!” He then smashed the button hard. Claptrap twitched slightly as his eye flickered on and displayed the boot-up screen for a Claptrap unit. After the screen faded, Claptrap started to move again. 

“Oh…” Claptrap moaned, a sad sign that he still lived to those who hated him. “Is this one of those Wizard of Oz things where I say you were there and you were there…”

“Aah!” Alpha let out a long sigh to cut off Claptrap before he went around and pointed to everyone. “How lovely to hear such lovely things out of you the moment you come back from the dead.” He clapped his hands together, before taking a huge breath. “Okay, serious time. Claptrap, I’m your savior, Doc Alpha.”

“I heard of you!” Claptrap jumped straight up to his wheel again and off the table. “Some sort of cyber wizard…”

“Be quiet.” Athena nudged Claptrap slightly. Claptrap obeyed.

“It seems the years hasn’t been too kind to you.” Alpha started as he once more attacked his keyboard. “All those first aid repairs? Bad idea. They might have patched up a wound or two, but they caused more damage than the original injury. Your on-board CPU is severally outdated and severally overworked…I’m going to run a few bypasses to make sure it doesn’t melt. “ He stopped typing for a second. “But that’s really all I can do. There’s no parts on Pandora or anywhere close to fix you properly.”

“That sounds…terminal.” Claptrap swallowed fake air as he tapped his vice-grip hands together. “I’m guessing…”

“Let me show you.” Alpha stroke his keyboard one more time. Appearing in front of him is a blueprint design of a Claptrap unit all colored in blue. But then various patches of red appeared all over the unit, revealing the dying areas.

“Claptrap.” Alpha sucked in some air. Despite just meeting the most annoying thing in the universe, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for it. “In fifteen days, your CPU will crap out completely. There is no way to save you.” A counter with three-hundred and sixty hours appeared on screen.

“Just a day over two weeks, Claptrap. That’s how long you get to live before you die.”


	2. A Bucket List For A Bucket

TIME REMAINING UNTIL COMPLETE FAILURE 

14:21:32:54

Claptrap’s first reaction to learning about his impending morality was to let out a long and anguished cry of ‘No’ and draw it out as long as he could hold the note. A prompt slap from Brick got him to be quiet.

The next action he decided on was to be left alone so he could figure out what he wanted to do with his last remaining days. Armed with a pen and a long sheet of paper, he started to write down his bucket list and his will.

And he felt surprisingly calm about it. A reason why a lot of people don’t write their wills is the fear that it means their life is coming to a end. Normally, he would freak out and doodle out some crazy-talk. And yet, Claptrap calmly wrote down all the things he wanted to do before he died and all the things he was going to leave to people once he did. 

A knock on the open door alerted Claptrap and he looked up from his long list to look at his guest, Gaige. “Can I come in?” She asked, sounding a mite nicer than she did before.

“Go ahead.” Claptrap sighed. 

“Just wanted to see how you are fairing.” Gaige awkwardly stated as she awkwardly walked inside. “You know, make sure you aren’t doing anything suicidal…”

“Please.” Claptrap again sighed, activating his emo personality. “Like I could. After enduring torture after torture, I could throw myself off Sanctuary into a volcano and still roll out.” Claptrap took a second to think before asking out loud, “Could I just use the New-U Station to make a new body for me?”

“Wouldn’t work.” Doc Alpha chimed in from inside Claptrap and making Gaige jump. “Yeah, for the time being, I’m using remote access to Claptrap’s CPU in the hopes of trying to get him more time or even fixing him…and I’m already regretting doing this.” He let out a sigh equal to Claptrap’s. “It’s like somebody threw Christmas light together into a popcorn bowl full of thin spaghetti noodles…”

“Oh, that’s just yesterday’s lunch.” Claptrap admitted.

“Ugh.” Alpha sighed. “The New U-Station makes a copy of your current body. All it would do is give you the same body you already have, complete with the defects. And if you spawn in at a defective station, it could scramble you even worse than what you did to yourself!”

“Well, back to the list.” Claptrap held up the list and waved it around. 

“Let’s see what you got.” Gaige peeked over the top of Claptrap. “Make love to a sexy robot…that’s obvious…hack Handsome Jack’s Echowiki entry to be a step-by-step process about how Skags poop…that’s doable…eat a steak made out of a Invincible monster…that’s un-doable…write a book…generic…”

“Are you going to comment on everything I write down?” Claptrap grunted.

“Sorry.” Gaige backed away. 

“I…” Claptrap sighed as he put down both pen and paper. “…really don’t know what I want to do with my last few days! Sure, making love is something I want to do, but everything is things I hear other people do when they have their lives about to end…”

“Then let’s get out there.” Gaige got close to Claptrap and wrapped her robot hand around his body. “Let’s do a roadtrip to all of the fun places on Pandora. We can work out all of the things you want to do and then do them as we come across them?”

“Would you really spend fourteen days with me on trip across Pandora?” Claptrap asked honestly.

“Well, maybe four days, but that’s probably pushing it.” Gaige waved her hand. She went towards the door. “I could convince some of the others to come along. I’ll let you think.” She went back towards the door, looking back only for a second to see Claptrap. Claptrap didn’t even bother saying ‘good-bye’. Gaige shook her head as she departed from the garage.

Claptrap at least made sure that he willed his body to Gaige for study and parts for Deathtrap. She deserved that much. All of his money would go to Athena and Janey so they can have a little mad money. (He did have some money to his name, around thirty thousand.) His home out in the Windshear Wastes would go to Zer0, Mordecai and the Hammerlocks to serve as a game shack. (Never mind that Sir Hammerlock already had a home out there.) His most precious gun, the Exclaibastard, will go to Lilith. The graveyard of Claptraps outside his home in the Wastes will go to Patricia for whatever she wanted to use. Tiny Tina will receive all of his BnB equipment. Moxxi will receive all of the treasures he had gotten from the savages on Aegrus.

And Kreig gets the rest, whatever it might be.

Looking at his list and wondering if anyone would actually accept the bequeaths, Claptrap wondered how his funeral would play out. Doubtful would be a tearful send-off or even a jaunty funeral march. At the worst, he could expect for his corpse to join his kind out in the wasteland or in a random junkyard. At best, he could expect a few words and taunts before having his body dumped somewhere.

“I have nothing to give.” Claptrap let out a sigh. “And I never really had the will to live.” He peered towards the still ajar door and looked outside to see a small crowd moving around. “They won’t forgive me for all of things I done.” He hopped back up and rolled over to the little cubbie that served as his ‘bed’. “Might as well make it easy and end it.”

As he continued to stare outside, he started to notice how the people seem to be running away from something. Or to something, he wasn’t really paying attention. Maybe there was a sale going on or Marcus’ shipment of new guns broke up and people were racing to get some free guns.

But what go him to not only focus but also realize just what is going down is the giant rocket crashing into the ground and tearing up the door.

Claptrap jumped back up and went towards the hole that replaced the door. As he approached it, the screams of citizens and bursting of bombs filled the air. Claptrap peered outside only a hair to see people around like crazy, trying to dodge the barrage of both bombs and bullets but also the collapsing buildings.

“Claptrap!” Gagie shouted as she ran back. “We’re being attacked! You mind helping us out?”

“Gladly!” Claptrap declared with a actual hint of enthusiasm. He ran back into the garage and opened the locker to find himself a decent Dahl pistol. Grabbing a few spare clips, he charged onward. Maybe if he died during this battle, he would taken up by robotic Valkyries to Cyberhalla to wine, dine and battle with great robotic warriors.

Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully.


End file.
